


Morale

by hauntedjaeger (saellys)



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Female Friendship, Gen, headcanon dump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 08:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2843888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saellys/pseuds/hauntedjaeger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the silence after they hang up, Tamsin stares for a long time at the kitchen wall. When it doesn’t offer her any answers, she goes to make up the second bedroom. After that, she bakes cookies, not a particular talent of hers, but there’s a tub of dough in the back of the freezer for these occasions. She makes three batches, because what the hell is the point of being the cool aunt otherwise, and sets out waffle supplies as well, and then there’s a rosy glow coming over the mountains and it’s time to catch the bus to the airport.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Morale

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tielan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [tielan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan) in the [PR_SecretSanta_2014_treats](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/PR_SecretSanta_2014_treats) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Mako Mori and ALL THE FEMALE FRIENDSHIPS. Or: ALL THE FEMALE FRIENDSHIPS and the topic of young Mako Mori, ward of Stacker Pentecost. Basically, give me all the women of the PPDC working together, being friends and frenemies and colleagues and co-workers and backing each other up and trusting each other - the whole hog. Please?
> 
> Like I could resist that, tielan!

October 12th, 2019

Twenty-three hundred in Honolulu is midnight in Kodiak, but after what happened today, Tamsin is pretty sure Caitlin’s still up. She waits on the edge of a kitchen chair for the call to connect, arms wrapped around herself. When Caitlin answers, her face is drawn. It’s been a long damn day for the head of the Jaeger academy. “Sevier,” she says.

“Hey, Doc.” Tamsin swallows. She has, historically, been a pain in the ass for Caitlin at the absolute best, and she regrets that a little now. “I just need to know if there’s something I can do.”

Caitlin looks away. “Cadet Mori boarded a red-eye two hours ago. When she comes back from break, we’ll be going into week seventeen. There isn’t anything else to do--the arrangements have been made.”

And Tamsin heard from Stacks that Herc is en route from Sydney, to make sure he’s as Drift compatible with his kid as the PPDC assumes he is. “Did anyone else’s numbers line up with hers?” she presses.

“She ran successful drops with two other candidates. One washed out in week nine and the other is paired--they’re getting Solar Prophet since the Vílcas both lost a leg.” Implicit in this statement is the fact that they did not test Mako with more than three candidates because by the time she Drifted with her third, there was no reason to look for anyone else. With a simulator score like that, why hedge your bets?

Tamsin lets the silence sit heavy. “You know this is bullshit,” she says at last.

Caitlin scrubs the heel of her hand against her forehead. “It’s Australia’s money. Officially, they can place whatever stipulations they like on who pilots Striker Eureka.”

“It’s bullshit,” Tamsin emphasizes, because she doesn’t have the energy right now to elaborate about how funding and national morale is a convenient vehicle for lad culture and probably some good old fashioned racism too, nor does she really have to tell Caitlin any of that.

The PPDC stuck two Brits in a Japanese Jaeger, two Koreans in a Russian Jaeger, French twins in a Peruvian Jaeger. The Jaeger program used to be about planet bloody Earth, not some puffed up bastard bureaucrats on an island that hasn’t seen a kaiju in five years, desperate to cover their asses and put on an Aussie-posi show because it turns out they’ve been paying a rapist’s salary.

She takes a deep breath, counts as she holds it, lets it out gently. Caitlin knows all of this, and none of what’s happening is her fault. Moreover, Tamsin’s nostalgia is false: politicians have always had their hands up the PPDC’s bum, and it was only a matter of time before they ruined somebody’s life. “How did she seem to you, when she left?”

“Almost normal. The usual amount of politeness, and I don’t think she’d been crying at all, but she didn’t smile either.”

“Would you?” Caitlin shakes her head. “I gotta go,” Tamsin says. “Thanks.” She means it, though she isn’t sure what she’s saying thanks for--looking after Mako these past four months, she supposes.

“Get some rest,” Caitlin advises before she signs off, but neither one of them will tonight.

Twenty-three thirty in Honolulu is nineteen thirty in Vladivostok. Sasha still has her hair up when she answers Tamsin’s call. “Good evening, Tamsin,” she says.

From somewhere offscreen Aleksis booms, “Good evening, Tamsin!”

“Hey,” Tamsin says. “You guys hear the news?”

Sasha’s red lips curl elegantly. “It’s bullshit.”

“Yeah. Listen, do you know any spares around the ‘Dome?”

Sasha looks up and away from the screen, brow furrowed, and Tamsin observes, not for the first time, that this woman’s jaw could crack walnuts. “I do not think there’s anyone we could spare,” she says, and Tamsin holds back a sigh, partly at the bad pun and partly because everyone at the Vladivostok ‘Dome likes to act like they run on a skeleton crew and continually receive the pauper’s share of PPDC support.

If someone in ground or airborne wants another crack at getting in a Conn-Pod, strings can be pulled. Stacks can pull them--has been trying, all week long down in Sydney, to pull the ones that would keep this mess from happening. There wouldn’t be a parliament standing in his way if he swaps a tech from one ‘Dome to another, accidentally leaves simulator permissions open on a couple keycards, drops a sheet of scores and compatibility indices on a few desks… They can’t afford to keep a good crew out of a Jaeger.

She opens her mouth to ask if anyone’s muttering about retirement, maybe the Nova girls, and then shuts it again right away, because no, no one is muttering about retirement. Tamsin knows damn well she’s the only ranger who’s ever going to draw on Jaeger program pension.

“You think of someone, you let me know, yeah?”

“Of course,” Sasha says. “If circumstances were different, I would offer to pilot with Pentecost’s girl, but…”

“I know,” Tamsin sighs, and she tells Sasha goodnight, and then gets the same answer from Kaori Jessop, and again from Stephanie Lanphier, and after hearing for the third time that Mako would be welcome as anyone’s 02 _if only_ circumstances were different, Tamsin signs off and goes to the back porch and beats the hell out of a punching bag and pretends it’s Scott Hansen’s face.

She works up a good sweat, taking pleasure in the muscle that’s back on her bones. She stops and gulps air and water in turn, listens to the night birds, thinks about how much she missed this--not this with a canvas bag, but the burn of her exertion, the rawness of her knuckles, the feeling of accomplishment. She’s in remission, healthier every day. She could--

She blows a raspberry at herself. Because it’s not like that idea would get shot down by everyone in a position to stop her, from the doctors to Stacker to Mako herself, probably.

God, how she misses Luna. There’s a kid getting off a plane in a few hours and Tamsin needs to know what to say to her, but she’s never known what to say unless it was mean or funny or both. Luna was the one who knew what to say--would know, even in this situation.

Luna’s not here. Stacker’s not here to comfort his kid, to remind her that the loss of a copilot is not the end of the world, to lead by example as always. Tamsin is a terrible example, sometimes on purpose, and even so it wasn’t the end of her world either. But if she hadn’t spent the last three years in and out of hospital beds, she isn’t sure she would have been able to carry on like Stacks.

She gets up and pummels the bag some more, and now it’s oh-ass-hundred in Honolulu and oh-ass-hundred minus three in Sydney, but Alison Tegoseak usually works the night shift.

“The hell do you want, loser?” Alison greets. There are smudges on her face, no doubt acquired while loading anti-kaiju missiles into Striker Eureka's chest. 

Tamsin’s blood is up, and a challenge must be answered. “Wanna know when you’ll dump your asshat boyfriend so I can move back to Alaska.”

“I dunno, next month maybe. You look pissed. Angry, I mean. Who fucked up?”

“The PPDC. You got anyone in munitions who made it through pilot training, but ended up without a partner?”

Alison gives her a look. “Chyeah, which graduating class would you prefer?”

Tamsin shuts her eyes. “Sorry, I’m not trying to be insensitive--”

“I know why you’re asking. Yes, a lot of these kids got their dreams crushed the same way. I’m expecting some more this year.”

“More?”

“What do you know about the coastal wall program?”

Tamsin doesn’t know anything about the coastal wall program, but it sounds like a bureaucrat’s idea--and as Alison explains, that’s exactly what it is. “Watch ‘em do Hawaii last,” Tamsin grouses.

“Watch ‘em move everyone who’s rich to the midwest,” Alison shoots back. Then her voice and expression softens. “We’re always going to have a place for Miss Mori, and we’re not going to let her get away with believing she’s the best thing ever.”

Tamsin swallows a retort about how Mako actually is the best thing ever; Alison will find that out for herself. The endorphine rush from her workout is fading fast, and her sweat is cold now. “Thanks,” she says. Alison starts to say something else, but the pixels on Tamsin’s screen rearrange themselves and the sound cuts out for a moment. “Sorry, what was that?”

“I said, if she gets stationed up here, you’ll have a reason to move back to Alaska and I’ll have a reason to dump my boyfriend.”

“Deal,” Tamsin says, smirking despite herself.

In the silence after they hang up, Tamsin stares for a long time at the kitchen wall. When it doesn’t offer her any answers, she goes to make up the second bedroom. After that, she bakes cookies, not a particular talent of hers, but there’s a tub of dough in the back of the freezer for these occasions. She makes three batches, because what the hell is the point of being the cool aunt otherwise, and sets out waffle supplies as well, and then there’s a rosy glow coming over the mountains and it’s time to catch the bus to the airport.

Tamsin waits by baggage claim, but Mako has nothing to claim, just a heavy-looking blue backpack on her shoulders. She spots Tamsin and walks over with long strides--she’s grown a few inches since the last visit. She looks like she didn’t sleep on the plane at all. What a pair of zombies they’ll be by this afternoon.

Before, when they hugged, Mako was gentle, like she was always afraid she’d break Tamsin. Now her arms lock around Tamsin’s waist with a fierceness honed in the Kwoon and the simulator, and they hold each other for a long time. “Missed you,” Tamsin says to the top of Mako’s head, and Mako says nothing, just squeezes tighter, and if she wants to not talk for a while that’s fine. Tamsin has gotten pretty good at silence in the last few years.

On the cab ride to the house, Mako peers out the window, blank as an empty wall. Despite Stacker’s stoic example, Mako has never been a pro at hiding disappointment, but Tamsin knows numbness when she sees it. “My tablet’s acting up,” she says, not to divert Mako, necessarily, but to give her a chunk of future to think about that’s smaller and more immediate than the suddenly uncertain whole. “Think you can take a look at it for me?”

Mako turns to regard her, and Tamsin sees two facts in her eyes: first, she knows precisely what Tamsin is doing, and second, she is nevertheless starving for some way to be useful. “Sure,” she says.

They get to the house and Tamsin looks around as they go inside. There are little maintenance things she’s been putting off, things that would be easier with two people, and things that don’t necessarily need two people to accomplish, but Tamsin can act feeble. If she strings together enough of those things like breadcrumbs, maybe Mako will find her way through this.

She brings the tablet down the hall and finds Mako mostly unpacked. On the desk is three ring binder, the standard issue Jaeger academy one with brushed aluminum covers and the debossed eagle logo. It’s stuffed with papers and was probably the heaviest thing in the backpack. “Want some waffles?” Tamsin says as she hands the tablet over, and Mako says yes in a way that suggests Tamsin could offer pizza or curry or gruel and it won’t matter since she’s not going to taste anything.

When Tamsin pokes her head back in to tell her the waffles are ready, there’s a sheaf of papers in the wastebasket under the desk. “I’ll be right there,” Mako says, bent over the tablet. Tamsin goes back to the dining table and plates up breakfast, drizzles syrup into waffle squares. When she turns around, Mako’s setting the tablet on the counter. “Kernel panic,” she reports.

“Did you tell it to calm the hell down?”

That’s not a smile so much as a grimace. Time to put away _1000 Jokes for Dads_ , Sevier. “Thanks,” she tries, and Mako nods, attacks her waffles like she just joined the military and they're rationing--oh, wait.

Right after waffles comes popcorn and streaming the entire seventh season of _Orphan Black_ , and Tamsin only dozes off a couple of times, and only has to excuse herself once to shed tears in the bathroom about how Kira Manning is growing up, stupid sleep deprivation, and she comes back afterward and Mako puts her head right back on Tamsin’s leg and they stay that way well after the finale is over.

A while later Mako gets up and stretches, looks out the back door at the sunset, and disappears up to her room. Tamsin is washing the popcorn bowl when she hears footsteps, and she turns in time to see Mako go out to the porch, her hands wrapped with white tape. There comes the sound of pummeling. Tamsin wonders whose face Mako is seeing, or whether she's picturing herself two hundred feet tall and hitting a kaiju, or whether Mako has the bag and her fists boiled down to abstract concepts and is focusing only on the movement and the impact.

Mako comes back in after thirty minutes, and takes a shower, and by the time she’s done Tamsin has dinner ready: salad made of an embarrassing amount of kale, and open sandwiches topped with roasted vegetables. Mako eats with the same vigor as before. Her knuckles are red.

Most of the meal passes in silence, and then out of nowhere and well before Tamsin expected she would want to talk about things, Mako looks up from her plate.

“There aren’t going to be any new Jaegers,” she says. Tamsin can hear in her calm voice that this is not something the PPDC has told the class of 2019, that she worked it out on her own, probably before this whole fiasco, and now she wants some confirmation from someone who respects her enough to be straightforward.

“No,” Tamsin agrees, and waits, but Mako clearly considers this matter settled, and goes back to eating.

No, there aren’t going to be any new Jaegers. But there are old Jaegers, and lately it seems the people who run them fall apart so much faster than the machines. There’s one in particular, damaged but by no means totaled, with a Conn-Pod left empty. If the suits and ties insist on yanking the one that was built for Mako out from under her, maybe they can offer a consolation prize. It’s not an even trade but it’s something, and Tamsin can call Stacks, he can pull strings--

“Do you have any hair dye I can use?” Mako says.

Tamsin stares at her. She feels like a jerk for grinning at a time like this, but here is something she can do with her own two hands. “Yes, I do.”

As Tamsin works blue onto the strands, Mako sniffs in the sink. Plausible deniability: it’s just the smell of the dye, the sting of the bleach. Tamsin can let her keep this cover, and her dignity. At the appointed time, she rinses, and Mako has an excuse for water on her cheeks now, too.

Mako dries her hair and looks in the mirror. Her eyes are red-rimmed. The blue streaks are electric. She’ll fit in just fine at any Shatterdome now--they’re all full of the most obnoxiously beautiful peacocks Tamsin has ever known. Tamsin wishes she had options for her that are solid enough to grasp, wishes like hell she could give her what she wants, but Mako will have to choose a new direction to fully commit herself.

“You can still fight,” Tamsin says to Mako’s reflection. She’s not sure if she means fight the assholes keeping Mako out of a Jaeger, or fight the way the recruitment posters tell people to fight if they can’t jockey, by writing code and fixing Jaegers, but however Mako decides to take it, Tamsin will be there.

Solemnly, Mako meets her eyes in the mirror and nods once.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Alison's maiden name is courtesy of Vongchild/sputnikcentury.


End file.
